Rated F for Farming, Now Every Guild Bids on My Vegetables novel · Chapter 4 of 32

Chapter 4: Shirtsleeves on Floor Eleven

On Tuesday the stone lit up while he was eating his breakfast pepper.

[Term met. 300 XP.]

Gyu-ho sat down in the grass and put his face in his hands.

Somewhere in Geumsan, Ki-tae had walked into the co-op and paid forty-two million won.

Then he had turned around and told Grandma that the peppers came up.

The farm was safe.

Grandma knew he was alive.

He laughed into his palms until his eyes ran, and then he got up, because there was work.

A hollow had opened low in the side of the stone, a square drawer with no handle where there had been smooth rock, and it was full of brass coins with square holes.

There were exactly three hundred, which meant the Tower had taken no cut at all.

Thirty million won sat in the stone's coin drawer, and on this floor he couldn't buy a bowl of rice with any of it.

When he touched the stone again, a line came up on its face, and a window opened in front of his eyes.

[Level 2. Tomato seed, five coins.]

[Ju Gyu-ho. Seller of an unlisted floor. Day 7.]

[Sow, Level 2. XP: 750 of 1,200.]

[Health: 63 of 100. Stamina: 40 of 100.]

[Hunger: sharp. Thirst: none.]

[Coins: 300. Lots per Market: 1.]

Hunger had said sharp since Sunday, and peppers weren't going to fix it.

He thought the word Shop, the way he thought Sow, and the window changed.

[Tower shop.]

[Red pepper seed: not sold. You have your own.]

[Tomato seed: 5 coins.]

[Next seed opens at Level 3.]

The Tower knew about Grandma's seed tin.

Five coins a seed was half a million won, more than Grandma had spent on seed in her whole life.

He bought twenty, and the coins in the hollow dropped to two hundred.

The seeds came up out of the stone into his palm, pale and flat and ordinary.

Watering was the problem.

Wringing his jacket over the pepper row had taken an hour and left him shaking under the tree all night.

He walked the stream bank until he found where it bent closest to the persimmon.

Then he took his stone slab and cut a ditch from the bend toward the rows, the way Grandpa had cut them in the paddies.

The slab bit the black soil, but by noon the edge had cut his palms in three places.

[Health: 58 of 100.]

At dusk he opened the ditch with his heel, and stream water ran down it and soaked the ground where he planted the tomatoes.

By morning the vines were over his head and hung with fruit.

[Tower tomato. Quality: Good.]

[Growth: dusk to dawn. Keeps: 7 days.]

[Eaten: restores the eater's stamina in full, within ten minutes.]

[First harvest of a new crop. 100 XP.]

He ate one standing in the row with juice running down his wrist.

It did nothing for his stamina.

But it was wet and sweet and it wasn't a pepper, and he ate six before he stopped.

He spent the rest of the week on a house.

Grandpa had built the tool shed in Geumsan out of fieldstone, and Gyu-ho had carried the stones for him at eight.

The rule was the same here: heavy at the bottom, joints crossed, every course leaning in a little.

← Chapter 3 · All chapters · Chapter 5 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend